A round-up of forthcoming albums from unlikely corners of our musical world ....
First up is Dutch duo Jack Beauregard, alias the electro-pop partnership and nom-de-plume of Daniel Schaub and Par Lammers who, by way of visiting the entire continent it seems, have incorporated huge European influences throughout Irrational (6/10), a mostly consistent yet samey album. The first song, single Not That Kind, is pretty much all you need to know about the pair - stuck between the mid-'80s and the mid-'90s and clearly admiring of Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Sondre Lerche and Twin Shadow.
It's inoffensive, even rather melodic in places - Silver Mine and Miss Sunset good examples of this - but ultimately unchallenging and offers little in the way of essential life-changing songs that will make the hairs on the make of your neck stand erect. Pleasant enough though.
Nu-jazz and funk fusion ensemble Kairos 4tet have been gradually gaining plaudits for their earnest take on what a modern jazz album should be comprised of and with Everything We Hold (6/10), they may have struck gold. Not 24-carat gold but enough to shine among the lesser trinkets up for review this week. Recorded at Real World Studios and featuring guest-slots from Omar, Emilia Martensson and songwriter Marc O'Reilly, EWH is an album that's pleasing to the ear without being easy-listening in the truest sense, nor chin-strokingly hip.
However, it is also a collection with an identity crisis - is it jazz, soul or lounge? Does it matter? Well, of course not. Thing is, superbly orchestrated tracks like Narrowboat Man, Song For The Open Road and Home to You bring the album alive, while the more straight-laced amorphic instrumentals like Reunion are a long old plod if you believe that technically brilliant musicianship is no substitute for music with melody and direction. Perhaps diversity doesn't always signify greatness but at least the quartet of The 99 means something more than just clever music. Inspired by the 99% of the population that decrees itself at an economic disadvantage and the efforts of the Occupy Movement, the suite is by turns imaginative and borderless drawing musical ideas from right across the album and repeating them with feeling.
And from the same stable as Kairos 4tet come Empirical, the Naim Jazz label's key hopefuls who, with album number four, have gone one better than merely being 'forward-thinking' and 'fearless'. Tabula Rasa (6/10) is a double-album that utilizes a string ensemble, the Benyounes Quartet, and transposes the host trio's usual complexities onto a classical template and, almost, reinvents the wheel. For example, the gently unfolding The World in His Mind broods with mild urban menace where once it may have been a sprightly canter through the woods. Those strings help tether the Empirical whirlwind, which is all the more welcome when things appear to out of control - oddly, the aforementioned eleven-minute epic builds up to a typical crescendo and by the end, you're left wanting more. Scoffie (The Moody One) sports a funky little groove, Repentance is a return to the more atmospheric end of their repertoire while album closer Conflict In Our Time actually sounds like a war-torn battlefield of bruising sax and relenltess percussion.
There is much to enjoy on Tabula Rasa - the busy strings, the pin-sharp percussion, Empirical's obvious star-quality etc - yet a fair chunk of disc one, for me, just doesn't endear me to their efforts. Still, the playful The Prophet and the stomping opener The Simple Light Shines Brightest, are worth the admission.
Back to more straightforward territory with Carousels and Limousines and their Springsteen-esque road-trip that is Home to Andy's (5/10). Self-described as 'gritty urban rock', I couldn't agree more although I'd be inclined to insert the word 'dated' in there too. For every element of Kings of Leon on here, there's another of Guns 'n Roses or the L.A. 'rawk' sound that perpetuated radio twenty-odd years ago, particularly on Access Denied and the title-track.
Still it isn't all cringeworthy - One and Only is a belter, reminiscent of country-rockers Cracker or Gaslight Anthem and sure to be a live favourite before long. And then there's the plaintive Greasy Hands which mixes world-weary blues and outback Americana with pleasing results. However sadly, too much of Home to Andy's smacks of the sort of lyrical cliches that I spent most of the '80s and '90s avoiding and I'm not sure the UK is ready for all of that again. Sam Gotley's vocals are a bit special though.
If you've been wondering what happened to the 'whitexploitation' cinema movement of '70s samurai-slasher flicks and funky licks, look no further - Sendo Senshi, 'the one blade to kill them all', is back by way of the film of the same name, an exhibition, live shows and a suitably lowdown and dirty lost soundtrack. Scored by Alessandro Motojima and featuring the lead star of the film, actor White Dolemite on one track, this reissue sees the original tapes getting a buffing over and a conversion to CD, download and vinyl.
Apparently banned at the time of its release, Sendo Senshi (7/10) features a lot of blood, slicing, Seppuku and gratuitous hacking and slaying that gave martial arts crime-movies a great name. If you're up for a 'slash', check out this soundtrack, a sometimes cheesy fusion of John Barry, Roy Budd, Isaac Hayes and Ryuichi Sakamoto that delivers Western funk and Eastern cinematics, without being too parodied or self-indulgent. There's an element of Spaghetti Western about the title-track, a waft of sadness contained on the pretty Revisiting The Past and ritualistic terror on Yakuza Showdown - if that's not a giveaway title, then I don't know what is! Good fun.
On a Britpop tip are Nottingham's The Establishment, who look like they'd flog you a dodgy motor, handle security at their own gigs or turn out for Forest (actually, one of them did - they're also managed by Dion Dublin), more than make an accomplished album of straight-ahead soul-rock by numbers. But, to be fair, they've done just that. Produced by Matt Terry and Ocean Colour Scene's Steve Cradock, Veritas (6/10) is likely to get overlooked as much as Beady Eye get accolades. While The Establishment might not win awards for lyrical observances, they make up for it with tunes, particularly on Diamonds and Breaking Down on which singer Stephen Hobster sounds for all the world like The Distractions frontman Mike Finney.
I'd imagine these lads being a huge draw on the East Midlands live circuit (they should be), even if they're under the current fashionable hipster radar with laptop-twiddling students, moaning about the price of quiche and sounding like a bloody dating-website advert. Thank the Lord there aren't any ukuleles on here either - for that reason, and Jennifer Jones, All Over Again and Hung Up On Jacqueline, The Establishment's obvious love of Inspiral Carpets, OCS and other anthem-bands is to be lauded, even if there's little in the way of ground-breaking hits. A game effort, pardon the footballing pun.
First up is Dutch duo Jack Beauregard, alias the electro-pop partnership and nom-de-plume of Daniel Schaub and Par Lammers who, by way of visiting the entire continent it seems, have incorporated huge European influences throughout Irrational (6/10), a mostly consistent yet samey album. The first song, single Not That Kind, is pretty much all you need to know about the pair - stuck between the mid-'80s and the mid-'90s and clearly admiring of Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Sondre Lerche and Twin Shadow.
Nu-jazz and funk fusion ensemble Kairos 4tet have been gradually gaining plaudits for their earnest take on what a modern jazz album should be comprised of and with Everything We Hold (6/10), they may have struck gold. Not 24-carat gold but enough to shine among the lesser trinkets up for review this week. Recorded at Real World Studios and featuring guest-slots from Omar, Emilia Martensson and songwriter Marc O'Reilly, EWH is an album that's pleasing to the ear without being easy-listening in the truest sense, nor chin-strokingly hip.
There is much to enjoy on Tabula Rasa - the busy strings, the pin-sharp percussion, Empirical's obvious star-quality etc - yet a fair chunk of disc one, for me, just doesn't endear me to their efforts. Still, the playful The Prophet and the stomping opener The Simple Light Shines Brightest, are worth the admission.
Back to more straightforward territory with Carousels and Limousines and their Springsteen-esque road-trip that is Home to Andy's (5/10). Self-described as 'gritty urban rock', I couldn't agree more although I'd be inclined to insert the word 'dated' in there too. For every element of Kings of Leon on here, there's another of Guns 'n Roses or the L.A. 'rawk' sound that perpetuated radio twenty-odd years ago, particularly on Access Denied and the title-track.
If you've been wondering what happened to the 'whitexploitation' cinema movement of '70s samurai-slasher flicks and funky licks, look no further - Sendo Senshi, 'the one blade to kill them all', is back by way of the film of the same name, an exhibition, live shows and a suitably lowdown and dirty lost soundtrack. Scored by Alessandro Motojima and featuring the lead star of the film, actor White Dolemite on one track, this reissue sees the original tapes getting a buffing over and a conversion to CD, download and vinyl.
On a Britpop tip are Nottingham's The Establishment, who look like they'd flog you a dodgy motor, handle security at their own gigs or turn out for Forest (actually, one of them did - they're also managed by Dion Dublin), more than make an accomplished album of straight-ahead soul-rock by numbers. But, to be fair, they've done just that. Produced by Matt Terry and Ocean Colour Scene's Steve Cradock, Veritas (6/10) is likely to get overlooked as much as Beady Eye get accolades. While The Establishment might not win awards for lyrical observances, they make up for it with tunes, particularly on Diamonds and Breaking Down on which singer Stephen Hobster sounds for all the world like The Distractions frontman Mike Finney.
